Thank you. Thank you. First I have to thank Cigna...

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Here is the letter I wrote to Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman after reading the NY Times article and seeing a post on Facebook about how to contact him by my friend Laura.

If enough people contact him, maybe there will be some intern in his office who secretly hates him and will broadcast to the world, exactly how many people think poorly of his choices. Enough with Tiger Woods. Lieberman’s sins are far worse.

My question for you Senator Lieberman is this:

Did your mother and father deprive you of attention as a child?

You seem to be taking extreme measures to seek it. Even at the expense of hundreds of thousands of Americans who cannot afford health care, you, Senator Lieberman need to be at the center of it all. The center of attention.

When most of the people in your great state of Connecticut are indeed for a public option health care bill (according to a Quinnipiac College Poll), you stand vehemently opposed to it.

Don’t we elect senators to represent the people? Or do we elect them to passive aggressively show their disdain for the president and their former party?

Well, when the watered-down health care bill has passed and years from now when you’re no longer in office you’ll go down in history as “the one who stopped progress”.

And in honor of your great senatorship, you’ll avail of great FREE health care for the rest of your life, while many around you (even in wealthy Connecticut) will struggle.

Senator Leiberman, all this attention is great right now. Enjoy. Enjoy. But it will indeed come at the price of a very tainted legacy.

-someone who once believed in you

If you feel as strongly as I do, get some of your frustration out and contact him. Even if you’re not from Connecticut, do it. And as my friend Laura suggested, just use Lieberman’s office address on the right side of this site.

Or, if you’re not the writing type,

MoveOn just launched a campaign against him. They raised $287,000 within just  a half-hour ago of launching it! https://pol.moveon.org/donate/lieberman.html

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Health Care Reform is at a critical precipice as New York residents rallied for its importance. This rally was planned in conjunction with President Obama‘s visit to New York for a DNC Fundraiser. There was a decent turn out on the southeast and southwest corners (and then some) of 34th Street and 8th Avenue. It was clear that the passers-by both on foot  and in vehicles were in agreement with ralliers. There were honking horns and nods of agreement as ralliers shouted their demands of a public option. “What do we want? Health care. When do we want it? Now” was one of the many chants from our group.

Here’s a slide show of the photos I took:

And here’s a video I took:

I recently saw the musical “Hair”, which captured the spirit of an era when people actually took to the streets. I can remember MASSIVE protests against the war in Vietnam. It did happen with the Iraq War protest to a certain extent. I can still remember that desperately cold winter day of protesting. But for something as important as health care, there were only a respectable number of people out there. It’s about as many people as I expected but I was secretly wishing for tens of thousands taking to the streets. It’s still not to late. If you haven’t done so yet, you can still Fight Ignorance and Get off Your Ass an Do Something, even if it’s just calling your representative or something. It’s easy. Just do it for your health and the health of our nation.

Here’s a related post from a blog called Raising Women’s Voices for the Health Care We Need. The post is entitled “Support Building for Public Option, and a New Name for It“.

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Posted via email from John Vasko’s Posterous

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Health Care Surcharge at Restaurants

I found this article from the New York Times particularly interesting. It’s about a program in San Francisco called Healthy San Francisco, which was originally reported by National Public Radio.

Small businesses pay a small percentage for every hour their employees work. The percentage is based on the size of the business. Collectively these “micropayments” pay the health care costs for employees of these small businesses that normally would not offer health care coverage.

Some restaurants have reacted to this program by charging a four percent surcharge on menus. Golden Gate Restaurant Association is not happy and is suing to overturn the law that mandates the program for small businesses.

Read the full article:

You’re the Boss: Is the Employer Mandate a Job Killer? Not in San Francisco.

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We (as individuals) can take a selfish approach and say “as long as I’m covered, that’s all I care about”. But we’re kidding ourselves if we don’t think we’re affected in some way by costs that are out of control and the uninsured.

Other countries (like Switzerland) were fed up with their health care systems and decided to do something about it. If the public makes their will known, politicians whose campaigns are funded by insurance lobbies will have no choice but to take notice.

How Much of this Money is Yours? Or Those Who Had to Claim Bankruptcy Because They Couldn’t Afford Care?

Information provided from: Special Report: CEO Compensation, Forbes.com, April 30, 2008:

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Would the U.S. as a nation ever consider actually looking at other countries as examples? Could systems and processes actually work better than they do in the absolute “best” country in the world? There is no question that health care systems in other countries do work better than ours. If Fox News-watching constituents of Republican congressmen could read this book (or even listen to this interview), maybe they might change their mind and fear change less than what we’re witnessing today. Well maybe not those constituents that are not on the insurance and pharmaceutical companies’ payrolls.

I’ll update this post after I actually read this book but if it’s nearly as intriguing as it sounds after listening to this interview, I’m sure I’ll have a lot to say. As the former chief of The Washington Post‘s London and Tokyo bureaus, Reid has had first hand experience with the health care systems of England, Japan, and France. His research for the book also led him to other European countries, Canada, India, and other countries. I suggest reading his article for The Washington Post entitled 5 Myths About Health Care Around the World.

He breaks down the worlds’ health care systems into 4 models and informs us that the U.S. actually employs each of the 4 models, depending on the person.

1. Native Americans and veterans have what is commonly referred to as the “William Beverage Model” (The government provides the care and the government pays for the care.), which is what they have in Great Britain, Spain, Italy and some other European countries. It’s paid for by taxes and what many Americans refer to pejoratively as “Socialized Medicine”.
2. “The Bizmark Model” (Private hospitals provide the care and private insurance companies pay) is what’s employed in France, Germany, Japan, and others. The insurance companies are like community organizations with the goal of keeping people healthy. They are non-profit organizations and Switzerland was the last country to have for-profit insurance companies. A referendum changed this when up to 5% of people in Switzerland were left uninsured when certain for-profit companies In most of these countries, people have the choice of many plans. This model is closest to what most Americans have (people who receive their insurance via their employers’ group insurance plan). The big difference is the non-profit nature of insurance companies in Europe and Japan.
3. “National Health Insurance Model”(A blend. Private doctors and private hospitals but the government pays). This is the system used in Canada. Because of recent cut backs due to the government trying to save money, there has been an increase in waiting time. Canadians do not want what they call a “two-tier system”. You can operate privately as a doctor, but then you relinquish your right to provide care through the national system. In the U.S., The National Insurance Model is like our Medicare, which pays most of the care for seniors over 65.
4. “Out of Pocket Model” (If you can pay, you get treatment. If you can’t pay, you don’t get treatment.) This is what most countries outside of the 40 richest nations have, along with to the millions of uninsured Americans, which make up approximately 17% of our population.

For more interesting details, listen to this great NPR interview with T.R. Reid:

So why is having 4 models a bad thing? After all, we’re all about choice here in the land of plenty. Well, aside from the fact that so many Americans are currently uninsured and that the status quo is failing, the administrative efforts associated with having so many different models create inefficiencies and higher costs. Our system is the least efficient system. In the U.S. 18-20% of health care costs are administrative as opposed to 4 – 5% in many European countries and Japan.

Right now, we’re at a critical crossroads in American history. We’ve got to decide as a people if we want to continue with the status quo (a system that is failing) or if we want to really create change. According to Reid, Taiwan decided to create a health care system that actually takes care of its people. The conservative party in Tawain conceded to public opinion and actually voted in and implemented a Canadian-like system. This concession came because of public outcry. Change is what we elected Obama for but we have to take part in implementing it. Make sure your voice is heard. Here’s a list of ideas of simple things you can do.

Also, I didn’t realize what I was missing by not getting more news and information from NPR, which I’ve always loved. So today, I joined their site and community online. What a great source of information NPR is.

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